Alejandro Ferrer, Convicted in Stabbing, Gets Life in Prison

Friday

Jan 25, 2013 at 2:43 PM

Sometimes people tell Chris Zieler he's just like his father. The words bring him comfort and pain. "It reminds me of everything I miss," Zieler, 18, told a Polk County judge Friday. His mother stood behind him, rubbing his back as he cried.

By MATTHEW PLEASANTTHE LEDGER

BARTOW | Sometimes people tell Chris Zieler he's just like his father. The words bring him comfort and pain.

"It reminds me of everything I miss," Zieler, 18, told a Polk County judge Friday. His mother stood behind him, rubbing his back as he cried.

Feet away, Alejandro Ferrer sat in an jail uniform, his face expressionless as he awaited a sentence. A jury convicted him Dec. 6 of second-degree murder in the death of the teenager's father, Colin Zieler. Prosecutors said he stabbed Zieler 42 times with a 12-inch blade, including a slash across the throat.

Ferrer, 31, could have gotten as few as 21 years in prison in the slaying. Zieler's family pleaded with Circuit Judge John Radabaugh to put him away for life.

Their pleas weren't wasted.

"You took a life," Radabaugh told Ferrer. "This is a violent, extreme offense, and I think life imprisonment is appropriate."

The conviction is Ferrer's second in Zieler's death. Four years ago, the State Attorney's Office tried him on a first- degree murder charge with a possibility of the death penalty. But in 2011, appellate judges overturned the eventual conviction — second- degree murder — because they found jurors were improperly instructed about a possible lesser charge of manslaughter.

Ferrer knew of Zieler, a former golf pro, through his girlfriend, Heizel Gonzalez-Martinez. She had a previous relationship with Zieler and had custody of a child they shared.

In May 2007, the three clashed outside of Zieler's South Lakeland apartment after he and Gonzalez-Martinez argued on the phone. The former couple didn't agree on where Zieler should pick up their 3-year-old son for a planned trip to Texas.

During his sentencing on Friday, Ferrer's defense attorney, Joshua Westcott, asked Judge Radabaugh for a retrial. He argued the evidence in the case didn't support the most recent conviction.

Radabaugh denied his request.

Duke Fagan, an attorney for Zieler's mother, called the slaying a "cold-blooded, back-stabbing murder" and asked Radabaugh to "make sure (Ferrer) never has a chance to make another mother bury her child."

"Close the door forever on that evil," he said.

Mindy Rogers of Texas, with whom Zieler had two sons, said she wanted to defend Zieler's memory because testimony in the trial portrayed him as a violent person.

"I never saw Colin in a situation that was out of control," she said.

Westcott told the judge Ferrer didn't deserve a life sentence.

His family "will never know him outside the context of jail," he said.

[ Matthew Pleasant can be reached at matthew.pleasant@theledger.com or 863-802-7590. ]